


[Abandoned WIP] Walk on Stone

by istia



Series: Abandoned WIP [5]
Category: The Professionals
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Angst, M/M, POV Ray Doyle, Professionals AU: CI5 Setting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 16:21:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1864404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/istia/pseuds/istia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A year after Doyle fled CI5, an unexpected encounter with Bodie sweeps him back into the fold.</p>
            </blockquote>





	[Abandoned WIP] Walk on Stone


    Oh, I have been a beggar,
    And shall be one again,
    And few the ones who help
    Within the world of men.
    
      One day I walk in flowers;
      One day I walk on stone;
      Today I walk in hours;
      One day I shall be home.
      One day I shall be home.
    
        --Bruce Cockburn, _One Day I Walk_ , 1970

The Brindled Dog deep in the heart of Stepney was a noisome, dank cubby-hole of a place, but it was at least warm. For a man wearing a too-thin denim jacket and jeans worn to whiteness at the elbows and knees, with only a clean but stained green T-shirt and a faded plaid flannel shirt beneath, the warmth was more welcome than the crystal and Persian carpet fittings of the Dorchester would have been. Doyle rubbed absently at the chilblains on his reddened fingers; bleeding nuisance having lost those gloves. His money was on Albert at the Y nicking them out of the locker in the shower room. Copper's instincts surfacing? Nah, probably not; those furtive, weasel eyes of Albert's would be a dead giveaway to anybody.

Not that it mattered, any more than most things. He blew on his aching fingers--always ached in the cold now--and sipped at his glass of bitter. Lousy, watered stuff, and it left a nasty taste in the mouth, too. Still, he wasn't making it last because he couldn't stand it, but because he couldn't afford to fork out for another half and he could stay in the warm as long as he could make this one last. Not like there was anywhere else to go, anyway. His feet inside the soaked trainers were unfrozen at last; be nice to have dry feet before he left, though that was so unlikely that he wasted no energy even in hoping.

He stared sightlessly at the wall, his eyes not focusing on any of the fly-specked glassed prints and photos that in some cases obscured, but in other places had apparently caused the cracks and holes that crazed the old plaster. He needed a place to sleep that night, he supposed, but he didn't worry at the thought; the alley behind the Chinky place'd do, as long as no one else got there first. Owner's rights. He made a desultory half-decision to get there just before dark and squat to declare his purview. No problem--mostly--defending his place once he'd got it, though he felt little urgency about securing himself a safe place. Didn't much matter where he dossed down, did it? One squat was as good as another; or, to put it more reasonably, as cold, wet, and unpleasant as any other. There'd be free dinner behind the Chinky...he pulled a face and let his mind blank to its familiar emptiness.

No point in forcing himself to think about anything beyond the moment. This moment, this reality, with the stink of too many unclean bodies and the yeasty smell of hops and the fug of smoke that permeated the air and pressed in on him like a smothering blanket. And, cutting through it all, sharp and insistent, the scent of hot grease that made his stomach clench involuntarily. He supposed he should do something to get some money for food, but let the thought drift away again. What did it matter? What could it possibly matter.

He drifted for some time in blankness until a prickling sensation awoke his dormant senses. It took him several seconds to blink himself back to full awareness. A tiny sliver of his mind was horrified at his deadly slow reaction time, but the majority of his brain was too tired and deadened to care. The prickle of awareness was unusual enough these days to startle him into looking around, wondering what could have made his subconscious perceive danger of such magnitude that it got a signal through the cotton stuffing in his mind.

Not much to see at first glance. A fair number of bodies. The pub was a popular spot with the dole crowd and the working girls at the cheaper end of the spectrum, especially on days like this; he wasn't the only one to appreciate the almost-free warmth and shelter. Nothing looked different from any other afternoon--until a knot of people shifted apart and he glimpsed a familiar form. Two familiar forms, come to that, with their heads together, the taller bending over to listen to the smaller man as he spoke and gesticulated, hands slicing the air and eyes sliding ceaselessly, nervously, around the room.

Doyle froze, disbelieving. Here? It couldn't be. A trick of the mind; he hadn't woken to as much rational awareness as he'd thought. Hunger did that, he reflected vaguely; he'd read that somewhere once. Could play tricks on a man's mind. A half of bitter--even as watered-down as this rot was--on an empty stomach might have contributed to the delusion, too. Be seeing Jacob Bloody Marley in the door-knocker next, he thought, with sour humour; but he couldn't avoid the awakened memories.

The crowd had fallen back between them like a jangling, garish bead curtain. Images of the last time he'd seen Bodie assaulted Doyle's mind. He couldn't escape the memory of the way he'd frozen then, too, exactly the same as now, unable to move, unable to form a rational thought. The moment came back to him in one huge gulp: of himself frozen for a seemingly interminable time and the near-death that had followed his error, the ultimate disaster that had so nearly happened that he still couldn't bear to contemplate it without squeezing his eyes shut in horrified retreat. His heart hammered painfully in his chest.

The memory play-back moved inexorably on to the following images: his partner's scalding fury at Doyle's carelessness that had almost killed Bodie, Bodie's shock and demand to be made to understand how it could have happened, what had happened, what Doyle thought he'd been playing at; and the cold, impatient Scots voice that had overridden Bodie's anger, condemning Doyle for his inattention, his inexcusable ineptitude, for damned unacceptable unprofessionalism....

"Yeah, you're right," he remembered interrupting, speaking absently to the two incensed men as he'd dealt internally with the realisation that had struck him, with painful clarity, that of course Bodie was right, Doyle was nothing but a danger to him, and no use--it was no use any of them trying to pretend otherwise.

He'd left that night, hadn't seen either of them since the moment when Cowley had ordered him back to HQ on his own, demanding a full report and explanation, and taken Bodie off with him. He'd stood for a moment hungrily gazing at Bodie's broad back walking away from him, and then he'd left. No use in trying to leave properly, giving his notice, working out his time; making a farewell that was, quite simply, beyond his strength. It had all been utterly clear what he must do and how much he could manage. The only viable option for either of them was that Doyle make a clean and immediate break. He'd owed that to Bodie, who hadn't deserved...any of what had happened, or almost happened, at least--and might well happen if Doyle didn't cut his partner free.

A year ago, that had been, or close as made no difference. He hadn't been as cold then, had more clothes and money for heat and a decent place to live. Amazing how much a man's life could change in a single year.

His back gave a savage twinge, and he realised he was still sitting frozen in place, like a mole caught in the glare of a car's headlamps. He eased his posture with practised care, stretching just enough to dull the pain knifing into him in his lower back. He drew breath into his lungs shallowly; filling his lungs entirely would make the ache worse. He wouldn't be able to run if he couldn't make the pain ease. Stupid to let himself freeze like that. As though he didn't know better; didn't know his own body and how it would let him down if he didn't watch out.

Just as he'd let Bodie down: and paid the price.

He awoke to the urgent awareness that he had to get out of the pub, get out now. He couldn't take a chance on being seen--not by Bodie, not as Doyle was now. Not after all this time, when Bodie had probably moved on and forgotten he'd ever had a partner who had almost caused his death. A clean break; always the best. It had been the only option then and it still was now, even though part of him longed to creep close to Bodie, to smell him again and feel his magnetic presence and revel in the sense of companionship and the thrilling interdependence they'd known together.

But Bodie'd have a new life by now; always landed on his feet, Bodie did. Could depend on it. Bodie wouldn't be cold and sick of life, with a bullet in his back that was slowly killing him, sick of living, sick of the struggle, sick of the deadly passage of each interminable day.

He loosened his aching fingers from the edge of the chipped Formica table and placed them flat on top. He made to push himself upright, careful to put the effort into his knees and his legs rather than allowing strain on his back; he had to be able to walk, now, right now of all times, if not run. He had just begun to lift himself when the prickling awareness returned in a tide of sensation, and he paused, looking up and seeing, through a gap in the crowd, narrowed eyes that were staring at him with familiar intensity. And Doyle saw, too, an unfamiliar mix of emotions on a face as frozen as Doyle's body: anger, he thought, trying to sort them out, and a goodly dollop of disbelief, and disgust, perhaps, under it all. And, very possibly, hate.

The hate galvanised him. He needed no other assurance that Bodie was free of him exactly as he'd intended. Doyle moved. He pushed his body and forced it up and made his way unerringly to the back of the dim-lit public house. He had the advantage of the home-ground, smiling briefly at the thought. It would have amused Bodie in the old days; though nothing about Doyle seemed likely to amuse his ex-partner now. Doyle knew of the door to the stinking, rubbish strewn alley at the back. With luck, Bodie would be delayed by the crowd and Doyle would be gone before Bodie worked it out.

Luck, however, proved the same elusive bitch she'd been for the past year. Doyle made it outside into a cold drizzle and loped as quickly as he could towards the high chain-link gate that closed off the western end of the alley. It was padlocked, but he'd been expecting that. The locked courtyard, filthy as it was and exposed to the elements, wasn't a bad squat in less inclement weather, at least for someone as adept as Doyle was at hiding from the copper on his beat. He could scale the gate if he were granted just a few moments' grace.

"Hold it, Doyle!"

He clung to the links a couple of feet above the ground, but a good three feet short of the top of the gate. He didn't look back, but reached up, ignoring the spasm in his back, and grasped the next handhold, fitting his trainer into the next highest pocket.

"Get down, now, or I'll shoot."

The voice was cold, oh so cold, so much colder even than Doyle's heart and the knife-pain in his back and the rain that slid down his face like claws. He closed his eyes for a moment before turning his head and looking at Bodie. The Walther was held steady in both of Bodie's hands and was levelled at Doyle. Bodie's stance was businesslike, legs apart for balance and set firmly; his face was granite. Doyle looked at everything except Bodie's eyes for as long as he could, and then he met them.

"Will you?" He had no inkling if he spoke aloud or not.

He tore his eyes away from what he might see, and gripped a higher handhold.

"CI5 business, Doyle. Did you think you could just leave, no questions asked, no debriefing, no vetting of where you were going or what you were going to do? Cowley wants you. Get down or I'll shoot you, if that's what it takes."

Yeah, Doyle thought, wearily, when the implacable voice fell silent, I reckon maybe you will. You do it, mate; solve all the problems, that will, for both of us.

He flung himself for the top of the gate in an adrenaline-fuelled leap. He ignored the furious shout that rose behind him and the roaring of his own pulse in his ears. He ignored everything except the drive to escape or reach the end, one way or another--until pain cold and shocking as death exploded in his body and he was aware of vertigo and falling and sharp relief that it was over. And, drowning out everything else, sorrow for Bodie, whom he'd harmed again when he'd only ever wanted to protect him.

He hit the ground with an explosion of pain. In a last flutter of coherence, he thought perhaps his luck was back, after all. Then conscious thought deserted him and he fell into darkness with a diffuse but agonised feeling of betrayal that Bodie had actually been able to shoot him after all.

:::::::

He awoke in fuzzy increments as one sense after another slowly gave him information. No white-hot sear of pain was the first piece of crucial information to penetrate his brain. The awareness of relative softness beneath his body next made itself known and his nostrils twitched at the mingled scents of cleanness and bleach that the pillowcase exuded. He knew that smell, or one near enough like it, and let his olfactory nerves explore for the few moments necessary to confirm his suspicion of where he was; the distinctive odour of disinfectants, starch, boiled food, and carbolic soap told its tale. The soap smell seemed to be coming from him. They'd cleaned him, then, though the three-day stubble he'd had was still prickling his cheek. Expect they'd get around to that, too, in time.

With resignation, he forced his eyes open. It was still daylight, with light coming in a large window across the small room from his bed. Or, at least, it was daytime of some day or other, if not the same day. Whatever day that had been; whatever it might matter.

Thoughts of when and where and how fled, leaving his mind blank as his eyes fixed on a shadowed figure standing before the window. Sturdy and broad-backed, it was more familiar to him than his own silhouette. He'd seen it too often, in too many circumstances, not to know that shape more intimately than any other in the world.

_And if I'd fired from the door and...missed, who was standing in the window?_

_When did you ever miss?_

Until the day when he did almost miss and Bodie nearly died. He swallowed at the painful fist stuck in his throat and stared hungrily at the familiar form. His eyes slowly adapting to the light, Doyle could see Bodie was facing outwards; Doyle kept his body still to prolong the gift of this moment in which he could soak in the sight of his ex-partner. The dark hair was as short as ever, he noticed, fitting like a cap to the shapely skull. It was a bit hacked about; been at it with scissors himself, again, Doyle thought, too lazy to go to the barber's. One errant lock that had escaped the shears had achieved just enough length to form a tiny, dark curl against the pale smoothness of the nape of Bodie's neck. Doyle swallowed painfully, unable to bear the semblance of familiarity any longer. He no longer knew Bodie or had any right to think he did, any more than Bodie knew him.

Or any more than Doyle could understand why he seemed to be alive.

"You shot me." He blinked at hearing his croaking voice.

Bodie turned. With his body still back-lit, his face was a mere shadowed darkness.

"Don't be stupid."

Bodie turned sharply on a heel and walked out of the room, leaving only the echo of his voice behind him. He'd sounded contemptuous, but there was also something else, something painful and unexpected. Weariness? Doyle gnawed at the thought. Or, no, even beyond that. A flattening of feeling as though Bodie had moved all the way over to indifference, to being too tired and fed-up to care.

Eyes squeezing shut, Doyle made his first attempt to move and instantly regretted it. A haze-filled moment later, he vaguely saw a nurse's blue-and-white uniform bending over him, quickly followed by a man wearing a white coat and a pinched frown.

"Lie still, Mr Doyle." The doctor's voice was reproving and raised a rush of savage impatience in Doyle. All the same, these bloody doctors; left you to get on with it, and then told you off when you paid the price.

So they know my name, he thought, as the doctor droned on about the bullet in his back having shifted so it was now pressing on the nerves in the area of the lower vertebrae, as, of course, he must have been warned it would do at some point, especially if he indulged in physical feats beyond his body's capacity....

Well, of course, they know his name, for Christ's sake. Try to keep up, Doyle. They probably knew everything by now; except what had started the ill-starred business. One secret, at least, remained to him.

"We really must discuss the matter of the surgery, Mr Doyle, but we can do that when you're rested."

He didn't bother to answer, as he'd long ago stopped answering doctors' questions or comments. He closed his eyes, letting the opiate dripping into his arm smother him with its chemical numbness, knowing he'd have no choice about answering questions soon enough.

Cowley arrived on the heels of the over-stewed tapioca that had the nerve to pass itself off as pudding in this establishment. Feeling slightly shored-up after his afternoon doze, and even more able to face the dragon since the nurse had helped him to turn over and sit up against pillows instead of lying helplessly on his belly like an infant, he looked calmly at his hands clasped on the beige blanket covering his lap. Cowley stared at him for long moments, then read from a file in a calm, even voice as he paced beside the bed.

Bodie was a dark presence standing soldier-like next to the door: still, straight, and silent. Bodie's eyes were fixed on a spot to the left of the bed, not acknowledging Doyle at all. Good, that. Very good. You do that, Bodie; keep ignoring me. Keep me out of your life.

"James Osborne." Cowley threw Doyle's passport onto the bed, followed rapidly by an artfully creased and dirtied birth certificate dated 1948, a driving licence, a crumpled Decree Nisi recording the divorce of James Osborne and Nancy Johnson three years previously, an expired library card, and a Bank Book for the Tottenham Building Society, recording the grand total of £5.63 in the account of James Osborne. "A bit of overkill, mightn't you say? Though the library card is a nice touch, I'll grant you." Cowley picked up the small, laminated card out of the rubble covering Doyle's lap and fingered it.

"If you're going to do a job, do it right. I was taught by the best. Sir." He was rewarded with an abrupt gesture of the fine-boned hands as Cowley flipped the library card back at him sharply enough to make him flinch involuntarily.

"All a big joke, is it, Doyle? Is that your attitude? Who provided these papers for you? I want a name, Doyle. I want to know how long you were planning this charade, and why exactly you felt the need to disappear like a thief in the night. I want to know these things, and I will know them."

Silence stretched for a few minutes. Cowley continued to pace. And waited. Bodie the dark soldier stood rigidly still by the door.

"It wasn't a plan," Doyle said at last, knowing there was no choice. Anyway, it made no difference. "Spur of the moment decision. Sir."

More silence, though Cowley had stopped pacing. He stared at Doyle with a contemplative look in his shrewd eyes for a few tense moments before turning to draw a painted metal chair to the bedside. He seated himself with the air of a man who had no intention of budging for some time, furnished himself with a pen and notebook, and looked calmly again at Doyle.

"Yes?"

"Tim Alcott did the papers. He doesn't know anything, though. I knew him from my beat days with the Met. No real harm in him; never really was, and certainly isn't now. He did time when he was younger--eight years for forgery--and never forgot the lesson. He's been straight since. Works at a decent enough job with his cousin as a bricklayer. He only did this job for me as a favour for...for old time's sake."

"Aye, well, we'll see." Cowley's fountain pen scratched against the paper of the notebook.

"Look," Doyle said, feeling the first stirring of true anger he'd known for almost a year. "He's got nothing to do with it. Just leave him out of it. He's done okay at putting his life back together."

"You should have thought of that before you involved him, then, shouldn't you?" Cowley's voice transmuted from silky to coolly businesslike in the wink of an eye. "James Osborne is a common name, I'll grant you, but I'm surprised that even you were able to elude our investigations for this amount of time. You don't appear to have prospered--" the pause for the sharp look that pierced Doyle from head to blanket-covered feet raised prickles on his skin, though he managed not to twitch "--but you have remained free, and in London. What other help have you had? What other harmless souls owed you favours?"

He fought down the irritation; annoying old goat had always got under his skin. Had a real gift in the interrogation room, Cowley did, but Doyle had watched often enough as CI5's Controller tailored his approach to his reading of the prisoner's personality and weaknesses not to recognise the game. Doyle's brain might be rusty, but it wasn't entirely dead yet. He schooled his features to indifference and answered with a casual insolence he knew would, in turn, get right up the Old Man's nose.

"None. I laid low for the week it took Tim to do the papers, then I left the country. Piece of cake." Knowing that Cowley would be satisfied with nothing less than names and dates to feed into his computers, Doyle threw him the bare bones: "I took a job as bodyguard with a man who felt the need to vacation more-or-less permanently in a more, uh, healthful clime. A relatively small-potatoes businessman, I suspect, who had managed to run afoul of a bigger shark in the pool. He'd made himself a small fortune and went off to a place where it would have the value of a large fortune, taking me along to ensure he lived long enough to enjoy it without interference from his previous connections."

Pausing, Doyle reached carefully--wary of a warning twinge in his back--for the water jug on the bedside cabinet, and felt chagrin when he fumbled it as pain lanced into his left lung. He drew in a shallow breath, then another, waiting for the darkness tingeing his vision to clear. When he could see properly again, Cowley was still seated in the chair, watching him intently, but the glass on the cabinet was now filled with water and had been placed within easy reach. He lifted it, anger surging again at his own flustered feelings. He took his time in sipping the cool, quenching water, keeping his eyes set unfocused on a spot that kept him from having to see outright either of the men in the room. Cowley allowed him the silence and the time.

Doyle returned the glass to the cabinet and eased himself carefully against the pillows.

"Anton Worschek was the name he went by. His accent was pure Brum, so I dunno if the name was real or not. Mid-fifties, 5'8, around eleven stone, balding with a sandy fringe, hazel eyes, pock-marked face; no other obvious distinguishing features. Unmarried, but accompanied by a Miss Sylvia Balderstone, another Brummie, some twenty years his junior, with some ample distinguishing features that are probably not relevant to this investigation."

He paused, and eased himself against the pillows again as surreptitiously as he could, though with little hope of disguising his movement from either of the watchers.

"Marrakech." He dropped his head back against the pillow, weariness seeping into his marrow. "He bought a villa in the hills to the east." He paused, quite unable for a moment to summon the energy to continue.

"And?" Cowley's voice was still coldly and courteously remote. Almost enough to make a man nostalgic for the scalding but passionate heat of his anger. Almost.

"Four months after we arrived, I stopped a bullet meant for him. Surgical care there is on the crude side, and hellishly expensive to boot. He was ever so grateful and all, but not enough to foot the medical bills, and I couldn't have afforded it--even if I'd wanted to. The most he was willing to do was ship me back to the UK with my four-months' wages and a bonus for danger pay. The Moroccan doctors patched me up and I was flown to Edinburgh. Spent a fortnight being prodded and x-rayed. When I could walk, I left. Somehow ended up back in London; bit of homing pigeon in me, I reckon."

He stopped, tiredness corroding his attempts to fight the oppression of being in the same room with these two men and all his shattered life laid bare to their eyes.

Cowley gave him only a brief pause. "The doctors say the bullet should have been removed months ago. Do you care to tell me why you have refused the operation?"

No, I don't care to tell you, Doyle thought. What the fuck business is it of yours? What business is it of anyone's?

He turned his face towards the window, now covered by an off-white blind. He summoned the last of his store of energy.

"I'm tired. Sir." He didn't look at Cowley, or anywhere but at the ugly window covering.

After a long pause, Cowley said, "Aye."

Doyle heard him stand, heard the scrape of the metal chair against the lino, heard the rustle of the notebook. When Cowley spoke again, he was a blur in Doyle's peripheral vision, standing by the door with a dark, silent shadow at his shoulder.

"Don't try to leave, Doyle. There'll be a man outside at all times."

The door shut with a click of finality.


End file.
